HOSPITALIZATION

Well, here I am. The place I've been trying to avoid. I've been a slacker and haven't updated the blog yet. It's Saturday and I've been here since Monday. I definitely debated whether or not to post a picture with this but decided posts are so much better with pictures even though I look horrid. Actually, if you could see me now I actually look pretty good in the picture! In just the past couple days my puffiness has gone from "Wow, my face is really puffy" to "Who is that marshmallow face in the mirror?"I really hope I'm getting puffy from the twin pregnancy and hope that this isn't the norm for me when pregnant.

So Monday I hit 4 weeks on bedrest. That morning I woke up and felt fine until I got up out of bed. In the time it took to walk down the stairs to the kitchen I was hunched over from my contractions being so tight. I'm always contracting, but this seemed more than usual. The few days prior also seemed like they had become more intense and frequent. My plan was to let my Dr. know that day at our app at 1:00 and I assumed he'd probably increase my Procardia medicine dose to minimize them. Within 5 minutes I couldn't walk and there was a pain in my right side that started radiating all over the right side. I have never had pain with my contractions. So I called my mom and she said to take a bath and if it didn't subside in 30 minutes to go to labor and delivery. I'm glad I have my very own labor and delivery nurse at my beck and call. So I somehow made it up the stairs to the bath. It took about 40 minutes until the pain was gone, although the contraction was still there.

I started to get ready and Justin came home to get me for my appointment. By the time I was ready and sitting on the couch before we left I was wiped out. We were a little early for the Dr. app so we were leaving in 30 min but sitting there the pain starting to come back, starting on the right side. I told Justin and we decided to just go early. We grabbed my bathroom stuff and bag just in case the Dr. said I had to go to the hospital. By the time we walked out the door and got in the car the pain was so bad I couldn't breath well or move. I knew I couldn't get out of the car and walk up to the Dr. office and knew if I did he'd look at me like I was crazy and ask why the heck I didn't just go to the hospital if it was that bad. So we just headed to Ogden Regional. I called my mom to tell her we were headed there and she called there to give them a heads up (for those of you that don't know, she works labor and delivery there and has for like 35 years).

They came out with a wheelchair as I could barely move and wheeled me up. Again after about 40 minutes from the time the pain started, it subsided but was still contracting. They put the monitors on and the babies were doing great, but I was contracting every 2 minutes for the first couple hours. Then it went down to like every 6 minutes. But they weren't painful, just the same ones I had been having. They checked me and I was dilated to 1 1/2cm. That was the first time I had been dilated. Up to this point, we had been going weekly to the Dr. and even though my cervix was wide open from the inside, the rest of the cervix was still closed and not dilating although every week the cervix would shorten just a little bit more. Last week I still had 1.25 cm that was closed. ( a normal cervix should be 3-4 cm long and all of it closed).

They called my Dr. and told me they'd probably keep me overnight just to watch everything, and have me see the perinatologist in the morning and I'd most likely go home after that. I had one more episode of the pain and this time during it they gave me Lortab (even though I didn't need or want anything for the pain, they said to take it to relax me so that they could get on top of the contractions). It totally relaxed me and at that point my Procardia was due, so they doubled the dose I had been on and that did the trick! I started contracting way less and never had the painful contractions again. I had to be on a clear liquid diet all night just in case something happened, but I was planning on going home the next day.

So I went to the perinatologist and the babies looked great, but my cervix did not. It had shortened to like 0.8cm, of course was still dilated and little girls head was just sitting against it with the membrane sac bulging into that space. The fact that I was dilated made a huge difference as that took a lot of support away therefore putting me at a huge risk for my sac rupturing. The peri said I was definitely staying. So they put me on bedrest with bathroom privileges. Absolutely no walking around. They do non stress tests twice a day and drew labs to make sure my liver and kidneys were working ok as they're watching me closely for preeclampsia.

Yesterday I woke up with my blood pressures really high. My BP's have been high and just within the past 2 days I have gotten so puffy it's ridiculous, which goes along with preeclampsia. So they were worried about that. Pretty much I'm just trending up towards that, there's just no way to tell how fast it'll come on. It can get really bad overnight, or take a few weeks to kick in if it's going to happen. So they started a 24 hour urine collection to check for protein and kidney function. Basically Preeclampsia symptoms are high BP, protein in the urine, and when severe can cause seizures in the mom and it starts to affect the liver and kidneys which then can affect the babies placentas as well as put the mom in danger. So if my blood pressure stays consistently high, or my urine starts spilling protein then they'll start an IV drip of Magnesium sulfate which suppresses the nervous system to prevent seizures and if my labs start showing that it's affecting my organs at that point they will deliver the babies. Craziness! The main risk right now is my water breaking. There is so much pressure in my pelvis when I get up to walk I feel like I'm going to break any moment!

It's still so surreal that this is all happening. They really can't give me a prediction of when the babies will come or what's going to happen because everyone is so different. So until they do decide to come, I'm just hanging out with all my puffiness! It's actually gone by really really fast and Justin has been so wonderful! He is taking such good care of me. The first few days I actually think I enjoyed a little too much being in the hospital. It's like it was good to have change of scenery after spending 4 weeks on bedrest at my house, and I don't feel like I should be cleaning or feeling bad as I watch Justin hustle around the house cleaning and cooking as I sit there helpless. Also, my mom has been here working Mon-Friday and so many of the nurses know me because they've worked with my mom for so long, and even if they don't know me, they know my mom and so they've all taken such good care of me. Tera, my sister was my nurse the other day and today because she also works here. So that's pretty much awesome. So I know I am having a completely different experience than if I had a normal hospital stay.

My prediction is I make it to 33 weeks, which is Wednesday, and have them sometime after that. I don't think I'll make it after 34 weeks. Wish us luck! I'll keep you all updated for those of you that have actually read these massively long posts!!!!